Why I Resigned From The Mighty

I was in a car, on my way to a work retreat for my new job at The Mighty, a popular mental health and disability blog site. The driver, a woman from Fresno who blogs about her life with a vascular birthmark, explained that she didn’t care for driving in Los Angeles. She turned to another woman who sat in the passenger seat, a blogger who focuses on disability issues from the perspective of a Christian and a parent of disabled children. After talk of traffic was over, they resumed their conversation about the famous bloggers who had reached out to them.

I tried to block the sound of their voices from my mind so that I could be fully engaged with the person sitting next to me. I sat in the backseat and was enjoying a nice conversation with another new co-worker who had flown from her home in New Orleans to participate in today’s activities. I’d perked up when she’d told me where she was from. Our conversation had taken off when I explained that I loved the city and that my family has some Creole ancestry.

It was a beautiful California day, and I was looking forward to the work retreat at The Mighty. The driver maneuvered though Hollywood until she found parking in a cement garage. My new friend from New Orleans got into her wheelchair, and we all ascended a ramp that ended at a glass door. I could already hear loud music, so I pushed my earplugs deeper into my ear canals. When the door opened I was blasted by the sound. I grabbed my Peltor muffs from the strap of my purse and placed them on my head. The confusion and disorientation I experience in response to exposure to loud or prolonged sound descended. I realized I was chanting, “I’m in hell. I’m in hell. I’m in hell.”

My new co-workers seemed to avoid my gaze. We navigated through hallways and corridors, and the music persisted in its relentless assault. When we entered the vast room in which the retreat was to be held, the CEO’s wife noted my earmuffs and steered me aside.

“I’m sorry about the music. We’re trying to get it turned off. You can stay over here in this quieter area,” she offered. Her look of concern seemed sincere, but I wondered how expecting me to withstand such an auditory onslaught was acceptable when it would not have been likewise okay to ask my wheelchair-using co-worker to attend the conference by ascending a flight of stairs.

The apprehensions I’d initially had about joining the team returned to my mind. I’d allowed my original cautious disposition to be overtaken by optimism when I had accepted a position of contributing editor with The Mighty, but my hopes were about to be dashed.

My caution about working with the company was twofold. First, I’m autistic, and The Mighty remains partnered with Autism Speaks, an organization that was at the forefront of promoting parent-centered propaganda about the perceived horrors associated with autism and autistic people. Autism Speaks persisted in this spirit until its board of directors voted to change its mission statement in September of 2016. But I believe in the possibility of both personal and organizational transformation, so I pushed that concern to the back of my mind.

The second reason for my prudence rested in the ways the notion of mental illness is most often discussed on The Mighty. Hundreds of contributors to the mental illness section of the site embrace and support psychiatric drug use. I tried to look beyond that as well, especially when the editor-in-chief informed me that people were welcome to present anti-psychiatry perspectives too, as long as they were worded in a constructive manner.

Since I had agreed to edit the contributions to the chronic illness portion of the site, I thought I would be able to keep my personal views on the autism and mental health components of the site at arms length. I thought I could promote empathy and understanding for people living with chronic illnesses by promoting their stories, yet remain disengaged from the problematic elements present in the autism and mental illness categories.

I remained in the quieter area until I was told the music had been extinguished. Within minutes of walking from the quiet area into the main conference room, I realized how misplaced my optimism had been. I removed my Peltor muffs and earplugs as the newly hired Chief Revenue Officer launched into her presentation.

“If the CEO for Abilify was in the front row right now, he’d be salivating,” she declared. She had just explained her strategic plan for monetizing the site with pharmaceutical advertising. But the plan didn’t end there. The Mighty planned to give drug companies user data that would help focus the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s marketing efforts.

After I heard this, I stood and left the room again. I had some soul searching to do.

The staff at The Mighty are not greedy ogres at the exclusive beck and call of big pharma. They are real human beings who care deeply about changing perceptions about disability via the sharing of stories written primarily by disabled people and their families. They seek to promote ideas of inclusion and acceptance in the face of pervasive ‘othering’ and discrimination.

The Mighty staff wants to grow a platform that helps people find comfort in the perspectives of those who came before them, at times when they find themselves on the receiving end of a life-changing diagnosis or in the throes of undiagnosed illness. The folks at The Mighty are legitimately good people who want to change the conversation about disability. They hope to make the world a better place for those of us who are roadblocked by larger society because of our differences. They want to monetize the operation in large part so that they can be in a position to pay contributors, who they readily acknowledge are the site’s raison d’être.

But despite the merits of The Mighty staff, my caution transformed to distrust when plans for an alliance with pharmaceutical makers was revealed as a core component of creating revenue.

As soon as I returned home I submitted my resignation:

It is with a feeling of deep disappointment that I offer my resignation. I will be very direct as to why.

I was horrified to learn at the retreat that the company plans to monetize the site by pairing with pharmaceutical companies. Had I known in advance that was the chosen strategy to create revenue, I would have declined the position initially, rather than accept the resources you invested in me.

Let me offer a brief synopsis of my personal journey through healthcare. After reading it, I think you will better understand my stance:

In 2014, after I had been a patient of the mental health and psychiatric treatment communities for over 20 years, I suffered an iatrogenic brain injury. According to a neurologist, the injury was made possible by years of exposure to various psychiatric drugs, but specifically because of years of exposure to Abilify. Immediately following the injury, I lost my ability to read, write, and speak. I presented in the emergency room with symptoms similar to those seen in stroke patients. It has taken the intervening years for me to even partially recover these skills. I still cannot write legibly, I must type in order to make my written communication understood. And as you all saw at the retreat, I can still lose my speech if I am exposed to too much sound, in terms of both volume and duration. I did not experience that type of inability to speak prior to my injury. My previous autism-related challenges with spoken language had been of an entirely different character.

The injury damaged my already compromised auditory system as well. I’ve lived with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) for my entire life, but it too went unrecognized by the mental health community, despite the fact that my inability to hear in environments with background noise was an enormous factor in many of the life stresses I sought help for. Rather than listen to my reports of these difficulties and try to uncover an underlying cause, psychiatrists threw drugs at me. My audiologist, the renowned Dr. Jack Katz, documented that my APD was profoundly exacerbated by the treatment modalities I underwent on the orders of psychiatrists.

Over the lengthy course of all of my interactions with the mental health community, my autism, like my APD, remained overlooked, and was instead characterized as bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, or PTSD — it seemed like half of the DSM was thrown at me. But partly because I’m outside of the stereotypical autism demographic — white and male — my autism remained unrecognized until after my brain injury exacerbated the most problematic aspects of the condition, such as my hyperacusis, misophonia, auditory processing disorder, and dysgraphia.

After undergoing genetic testing, I learned in 2015 I have a CYP2d6 gene mutation that makes me a slow metabolizer of many medications, particularly certain categories of psych medications. A person who metabolizes a drug slowly cannot tolerate the same dosages as normal metabolizers, and is more prone to side effects. I had complained of these side effects to the mental health community for years, but my complaints were dismissed as symptoms of my ‘mental illness’. I also have a yet undiagnosed autoimmune condition that permits the allergic-type reactions I have to drugs and other things my body perceives as toxic to detrimentally affect my brain. I am trying to work with neuroimmunologists to understand the mechanisms behind these events.

Since I stopped taking all psychiatric mediations, my mood is phenomenal, despite the obstacles to tasks of daily living and problems with executive function I experience as a result of both my injury and my autism. I credit my meditation practice, the wisdom gained from my journey through the mental health system, and the hysterectomy I had to cure my premenstrual dysphoric disorder (a condition that I have observed seems to be common among autistic women), for my significantly improved mood.

I am currently on Social Security Disability, but I have never stopped trying to re-enter the workforce. I hoped this was my chance.

When I joined The Mighty, I thought I would be able to compartmentalize my views on psychiatry from the way mental health is discussed on the site. I have intentionally abstained from participating in any conversation on the topic, because I realize my perspective is at odds with the majority of the mental health perspectives presented in the forum. I thought I could peacefully co-exist with the difference of opinion. But I have to draw the line with being associated with a site that plans to actively promote psychiatric drugs and allow for data mining among registered users to this end.

I believed in my heart that I could play an important role in promoting the writings of people who live with chronic illness. I hoped I could help expand empathy and understanding. So it is with great sadness that I depart from that role. I’m not only a member of the chronic illness community because of my autoimmune and genetically mediated intolerance to drugs and other substances, I’m a member of the autistic community as well. The autistic community has been on the wrong side of medicalization and medication for far too long. I cannot in good conscience lend my voice or my skills to a platform that associates with drug companies that have caused so much destruction to a community I care very deeply about.

Sincerely,

Twilah Hiari

CEO Mike Porath graciously responded to my resignation.

Twilah, I’m sorry to hear this, and I’m sorry that the day of the retreat was a challenging one for you too, but I appreciate you giving us the context of your personal experiences in explaining your decision.

I don’t know if and how we can be helpful to you down the road, but please don’t hesitate to reach out if we can be. I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but I respect your decision and I speak for all of us when I say we truly wish you the best.

I also wish The Mighty the best. It is my deepest hope that they can help people, but it is my greatest fear that they will open doors to more psychiatric injuries.

Illness and the Analytical Mind: Twilah Hiari is a recovering patient with a B.A. in Philosophy. She explores how the siloed nature of Western medicine contributes to misdiagnosis, and how clinician biases regarding issues of gender, race, class, education, religion and disability promote a culture that dismisses the credibility of the patient’s perspective. She blogs about her experiences at http://www.athinkingpatient.com.

42 COMMENTS

You have taken a very principled position at great expense to your ability to work in your chosen field. It may not be immediately apparent now, but this kind of activism will cause people to question and reevaluate the role of Biological Psychiatry in every facet of the “mental health” industry.

You did the right thing, Twilah. Irregular heart beats, heart attacks, seizures, and the list goes on and on. I’m sure there are many people who think they have no choice in the matter when it comes to psych-drugs, but they certainly do have a choice. Simply caving into drug company corporate funding pressure is to ignore the high toll that people are paying in this regard, and the point is, people are paying a high toll. Should we turn a blind eye to that heavy price then we contribute to it. Rather than increasing the damage, in all good conscience, resignation seems the only responsible course of action you could have taken.

I’ve been suspicious of that site for a while. Back in October 2015, The Mighty was promoting the #MedicatedAndMighty hashtag, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher-ups were planning to sell out to pharma from the beginning. After all, The Mighty is a private company beholden to its investors, and pharma is where you go if you want to chase the big money.

@Bean, Absolutely! I remember #medicatedandmighty since I fell into some Twitter spats opposing it. I remember following links and finding that it appeared to be a small, new private company (wasn’t it originally crowd-funded?).

Now, to me, ‘The Mighty’ looks very much like the baby born from a shotgun marriage between BigEntrepreneurship and the regressive left’s obsession with victim-identityhood. Post after post after post of, ‘I AM this disorder…’; ‘I HAVE that disease…’; ‘Poor me…’; and ‘I suffer…’, which is all music to the ears of pharma and prescribing MDs. Darkly funny.

‘Mighty about my victimhood status…and my meds are my badges of honour’ is what I hear.

Gee my psychiatrist knows everything. Becuz of the magic meds he put me on I think gooder than ever.

My life stinks, I can’t work, I don’t enjoy anything, don’t get along with anyone, and am too tired to pick up or wash my own dishes. And weigh 400 pounds But if it weren’t for my magic cocktail of 15 pills 3 times a day I wud be dead.

My psychiatrist told me this and he’s real smart. He knows everything and never lies. Without my meds, he told me, my mood swings would go way out of control. I might go on mad shooting sprees. Without a gun. Cause my mental illness could turn my right index finger into a handgun. Really! And my head would explode from all those chemical chane reacshuns!

Then the Law of Entrupy or somethin would take over. The universe wud end. And my dog Rover wud die!

As a former NAMI member I am still haunted by the vacant eyes and emotionless faces of my fellow “consumers” shuffling in. We were usually treated like second-class members. The first-class were the family members. Occasionally we would whisper about how we felt. Although this was not the Ultimate Heresy: blasphemy against the safety and efficacy of the Blessed “Meds,” there were other forms of heresy. 1. Pointing out the double standard in the way the family members and “consumers” were treated was naughty. 2. Asking why our “education” lasted 6 weeks, while the class for family members lasted 12–ostensibly because of our lack of intelligence–was also dangerous.

Finally out of that cult! They accuse us of being Scientologists. While patently false, I doubt the Scientology cult could be much more oppressive than NAMI.

Amazing how depressed we all were. Apparently that was due to our inferior brains with chemical imbalances. Our life situations and constant experiences of abuse at the hands of those “helping” us played no role at all! (Sarcasm.) 😛

Yeah, I went to a NAMI national conference once expecting that after years of living behind a mask in my professional job I would be in a place where I could safely self-identify as a patient. Wrong! Once I put the “Consumer” ribbon on my name badge (along with the ribbons related to my NAMI volunteer activities), I found myself being shunted off to the side over and over. Most notably, during a lunch, I seated myself with some of the chapter leaders from my state … and they all left the table, guiding others with “Consumer” ribbons to their spots.

I’m not 100% anti-meds, but I’ve lost a lot of years to the “side” effects my doctors thought were reasonable. Very glad to be back in a conservative treatment region where I take 3 pills a day instead of 15.

What is dishonest is that no mention of the Big Pharma funding is to be found on the site… or maybe I didn’t look hard enough to find it. But sites need to be honest and list where they are getting their money from:

To me, “themighty” looks just like more “progressive”, “liberal”, “bleeding-heart-liberal”, pseudo-compassionate, CORPORATE MARKETING. Psychiatry is a pseudoscience, a drug racket, and a means of social control. Look at “the mighty” – it’s just more PhRMA shills, pimping the DRUGS, and the LIES….
The DSM is a catalog of billing codes. ALL of the bogus “diagnoses” in it were INVENTED, not discovered.
So-called “mental illnesses” are exactly as real as presents from Santa Claus, but not more real….
I’m really not trying to be too personal here, but you shoulda’ known better, Twilah.
“Abilify” is made by Otsuka Pharm., which sells over $1BILLION a year of that DRUG, alone.
And, they are already marketing drugs with embedded RFID chips, “to improve compliance”.
Think about that. The quack shrinks give you a drug, and the internet can track whether you’ve taken it or not. Please, take a few days rest. Read Orwell’s “1984”, *AND* Huxley’s “Brave New World”….
Yes, that **IS** **WHAT’s** **HAPPENING**….

Great comment Bradford, as are all of the comments here. I did laugh at the point where you said I shoulda known better. Laughed and then had to log in to respond — I do think I knew better on some level, but being on the SSDI rolls will make a person do desperate things for a paycheck. I’m not sure which is worse, fighting off doctors who chased me with drugs that hurt my brain or dealing with the SSDI people. Doctors chased me and government employees run from me. At least that’s what I’m led to conclude this based on the multiple emails I have sent to government employees about the Ticket to Work program that just seem to go into a big void based on the lack of response or helpfulness I get.

Thank you for posting this article. I had not known about The Mighty, and I am glad that I had not.

I am 100% opposed to Autism Speaks. Like Peter Breggin wrote in Toxic Psychiatry, most of the large autism groups are simply defensive formations of the parents.

And I do want to see the problematization of children who supposedly have “Autism”, and what goes on at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts, and at the Koegel Center in California lead to lawsuits, criminal charges, and prosecutions in the international court.

And I also oppose the Autism Self Awareness Network, and anything to do with Neuro-Diversity, because they are acting like Autism is real. So they are hence exonerating perpetrators, by accepting something which amounts to original sin.

So I congratulate you Twihal, for extricating our self from something negative.

So I know this gets into areas of continuing sensitivity. But we have another article here, where there are links to a web site with discussion of ‘reparations’. This is the only way there will be progress, by holding perpetrators accountable. Without this, it is still just asking for pity.

So here are my responses to this, and most of all I want to call your attention to my challenges about the idea of affixing disability labels to oneself. And I say this based on the understanding that the reason we have the mental health system, and so much attention to disability issues, is because those behind our economy want to advance the bogus sciences of eugenics and social Darwinism.

We should be meeting them at the barricades, not doing their jobs for them.

Everyone is unique, everyone has limitations, everyone has special needs. We have to take care of people and compensate for them, but we should minimize the need for labeling.

People who belief in Mental Health,are one who support existence of Mental Health System and existence of
Mental Illness or Disorders.Most of people on MIA blogs,fell into such *category*.Only difference between NAMI
and Mighty vs MIA,is in their approach towards *meds*.Sadly like NAMI or Mighty,MIA also support existence
of Mental Health System.And anti-psychiatry movement have just too much Mental Health professions amoung
their ranks,that can be called as *anti*-psychiatry.There is only one way forward-anti Mental Health movement.
And start with movement Occupy NIMH in first place.

Sadly, I agree with this statement. There is no right action being taken against the fraud of the DSM at MIA that allows room for the medical model that is killing and disabling of humanity.
Considering an anti-NIMH movement, other than to expose it for what it is, ignore it at all costs like one would any other social ill and concentrate on what must be done to move in the opposite direction.
The anti-psychiatry movement, if congruent to its own truth and the massive body of facts already at our disposal, can, should and must challenge the legitimacy of using the DSM to diagnose people, as the junk science it is under Daubert in a court of law- repeatedly if necessary. The downstream approach of fishing dead and disabled victims out of the water, is ineffective and unethical in the face of the evidence. Our collective failure to do so, despite the evidence, exposes/presents a wishy-washy, mixed message that allows the mainstream to continue to be dismissive of the anti-psych movement at large.
The questions are, is there an anti-psych movement, if so where is it, who are its leaders and what is it actively doing to stop the fraud and carnage?
NAMI et al will always be in search of a buck and whore itself out to pharma et al. The only way to build a desperately needed, purely anti-psych movement, is to connect true supporters and never allow the movement to be compromised by people with mainstream agenda’s.
Deep respect for Twilah Hiari who could have used the financial support but put her truth front and center over and above that which would compromise her core beliefs.

Judi,
Quote: “The questions are: is there an anti-psych movement?
If so where is it?
Who are its leaders?
And what is it actively doing to stop the fraud and carnage?”

re: Those are very good and important questions.
Oldhead other day said at MIA (someting like this): that the history of anti-psychiatry movement was being so distorted… that this day is not possible to find it anymore (the true story).

Seems obvious that PHARMA/ APA…both have gained power since 1970.
Whitaker explained that part at his books… how it was done. With a plan, that took decades, and much $$$, paying psychiatrists, NAMI, articles, dinners, speaches…

That part is know, and the profits of Pharma can be found. Very profitable.

Now the “dark side” (not that we are evil, but people hate/fear us, the ones with a DSM-diagnosis).

I dont pretend to know the history of anti-psychiatry movement, but will point a few guesses:

a) Some leaders have died (and some disd died early);

b) some got old (or got discredited);

c) some give up (got tired of getting: no results/ no support/ the heavy burden);

d) some got bougth/ payed for their silence;

e) some found a way to get a little money & status (but helping very few people),… kinda payed fakes (or cases or vanity/ dont see their own incompetence/ lack of honesty).

f) Some leaders are so naif/ passive/ and dumb that qualify for: USEFUL IDIOTS.

g) the anti-psychiatry movement got infiltrated (that weakeaned it from the inside).

h) the anti-psychiatry movement lacked important things: “know-how”, “strategy”, and was too soft to make changes/adapt and never went “all the way”.
…………………..

So, PHARMA/ APA, see a)b)c)d)e)f)g)h)… and they laugh the whole way to the bank.

The above is not facts… just a tentative explanation. The results are known.
Those who know better (oldhead, or others)… can post what failed (and when). Because failed… it did.

AntiP, you might consider spending as much time deconstructing psychiatry as you are now spending deconstructing anti-psychiatry. If you did, something positive might conceivably come of it.

Organized psychiatry has spent a great deal of time and energy on PR and public image. Some of its leading lights have targeted what they see as the anti-psychiatry movement for many of the social ills the world faces today. The APA has developed, in fact, its own hit squads for dealing with critics. Anti-psychiatry is blamed for the suicide rate, the high numbers of people with psych-labels in the criminal justice system, and for the growing numbers of impoverished homeless people in the world. You name it, anti-psychiatry must be behind it. I just don’t think there is any sense in contributing to this fiasco, which is, no, not the fiasco of anti-psychiatry, but rather the fiasco of psychiatry. Psychiatrists apparently are authoritarian bullies unscrupulous at seeking out scapegoats for any mess they happen to have stirred up for themselves.

Search YouTube for anti-psychiatry, and I’m sure you will find something there that may interest you. At the international level I think there is a legitimate sense in which you can speak of an anti-psychiatry movement. This movement however is at a great remove from the mental health movement, its parasitic followers, and the mental illness religion that guides and defines it. If it is making and unmaking itself at all times, well, as far as I’m concerned, there is hope in that. May it help to inspire a more worthy resistance to the unrelenting psychiatric intrusions, interventions, and human rights violation that we have been subjected to since they first began segregating and incarcerating people for being different, and breaking out of the dull and dismal norm of constrained existence.

Frank,
I am new here, have other things to do, so havent been able to read at MIA all i wanted (and maybe that is not possible, as time goes… new things come everyday… that need solution.

… just wanted to remind that:
a) that i am new at MIA;
b) I am from Europe;
c) i own just 3 good books about SZ (all from Robert Whitaker): 1) Anatomy; 2) MIA; 3) Influence. And am lacking time to read all i like.
d) I lack information, and historical data (i know that).

But to solve a problem, is useful to know the problem.
And at participants post at the blogs/ news/ forums at MIA… i see some “issues” daily.
At this point i do not want to write about it (dont want to get banned).

I am new here. Here i learn things. I already get little cooperation (…about “things”…), as thing are. No need to make it worse for myself.

Whitaker told us what Pharma/APA/NAMI did (the general lines). For details we need to read at other places. Now… some thing rely heavily on money. We dont have $$$, it wont work.

One ACTUAL problem is this: if we dont learn from the errors of the past… result will be:… nothing done that will last. And a lot of time/ energy/hope wasted.
……………….

And Frank and oldhead… you 2 know a lot more than i do. And dont forget english is not my native language (i am aware any kid from the USA will write better than me).

I think one thing you need to understand is that since MIA isn’t an anti-psychiatry website, and Robert Whitaker isn’t explicitly anti-psychiatry himself, you are going to get a lot of things on this site that have nothing to do with anti-psychiatry. The amazing thing, I think you could say, despite this, are the number of things that do get on this website, due to the position of some of its users, which are very much in an anti-psychiatric vein.

As for the movements history, I think that is always going to be something of a contentious matter. Many of the people most associated with the term would not have it used to describe themselves in the first place. There is always this matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, and the figureheads from their ideas. We must rely on these ah-ha moments. Given a few ah-ha moments, well, that’s when one can be said to “get it”, and that’s pretty much what we’re after.

Why would folks from category F have wanted to leave the psychiatry movement in the first place? They would have made perfect shills, tools, and boot-licking poster children for Big Pharma at no risk at all.

Twilah Hiari,
You done the rigth thing. And you done it quickly.
That speaks volumes about your: inteligence, values, honesty and determination.
You are needed.

Some health professionals see daily similar things. Yet that does not bothers them. Unless they their favorite football team loses. Oh day to forget.
Some health professionals take YEARS/ DECADES to reckon… a little, tiny error.

Anti-psychiatry movement failed,I know this.And everyone on MIA also knows this!It’s a time for Occupy NIMH and Occupy WHO movements!And time for anti-mental health movement!Sadly that MIA,considering NIMH or
WHO as *friends* of crazy people.*Re-think* mental health,sounds so.

I don’t think any anti-psychiatry movement failed. We’re back at the myth of the phoenix, but I will reserve that story for another time. Anti-psychiatry is more likely to be reborn than it is to die out entirely. Psychiatry, after all, fervently believes in it.

I agree that mental health agencies, organizations, programs, etc., are all part of the problem, however I equate anti-psychiatry with opposition to the mental health system en toto. Occupying mental health organizations and agencies is not a suitable thing to be doing unless it brings about their downfall. The social control business, I would hope, is going to find the going rougher than ever before in the not too distant future, and that with a lot of help, undoubtedly, from enemies like this one.

Does Psychiatry honestly believe in an anti-psychiatry movement? If not, they are utilizing the idea to create fervor in the hearts of the faithful.

Caught snatches of Bipolarburble by mistake during a google search. The brainless blogger was in a tizzy. Seemed to think there was a vast underground conspiracy of powerful anti-psychiatry bogeymen. They wanted to lead the MI lambs astray and take away her precious meds!

Those poor, oppressed, vulnerable psychiatrists were in desperate need of her help! Lucky they had a super blogger like her to save the day. She wrote a series telling how she hated non-compliant folks because they were trying to make her crazy. All anti-psychiatry people were clearly evil and delusional and a threat to everything dear. She is in her right mind because of her med compliance and the fact that she believes EVERYTHING her psychiatrist says without question. Now she has to go on break to play with her lower lip!

“Anti-psychiatry” is definitely a bogeyman to the psych establishment, and also an ideological tool with which to (in their view) smear even their most moderate critics (many of whom aren’t “anti-psychiatry” in the least). As to what they believe themselves, interesting question — certainly they help draw people to anti-psychiatry just by mentioning the idea. Which is one of the best demonstrations of the term’s political value.

Success for anti-psychiatry would be no psychiatry. Psychiatry itself grew out of segregating and locking up mad men and women for being perceived as some kind of a threat to the rest of society. Psychiatry’s success is anti-psychiatry’s failure, and vice versa. As long as there is a psychiatry, there will exist a need for an anti-psychiatry to oppose it. No psychiatric labels, no psychiatrists, no psychiatric prisons, no harmful practices, etc. Such would be success for anti-psychiatry. Sure, it may be a long hard climb, but we were there before there were any psychiatric prisons, too, and in that sense, it would be a return, a return to the time before forced psychiatric treatment (i.e. the time after the demise of forced psychiatric treatment.) Let’s see psychiatric prisons (mad houses, insane asylums, “mental hospitals”) go the way of debtors prison, poor houses, and the institution of chattel slavery. They are where psychiatric prisons should be, in obsolescence. Psychiatry is pseudo-science, much like the pseudo-science employed in reinforcing superstitious beliefs, and so it should be treated.

I agree with Frank here. With whatever due respect, you guys going on about the “antipsychiatry movement” really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Although this hopefully will be changing soon, there currently IS NO active anti-psychiatry movement other than in spirit, and there hasn’t been for some time, so there’s been nothing to “fail.” The real anti-psychiatry movement predated Bob Whitaker by several decades and was well over by the time he even considered his research on psychiatry. MIA has never pretended to be anti-psychiatry so it can’t be criticized for not “representing.”

It’s a good question as to whether the real movement failed or was defeated; there’s a difference. In the sense that a concentrated propaganda and cooptation/bribery effort was conducted by the APA, NIMH and others, we were clearly out-funded and out-strategized and thus defeated. However the willingness of “liberal” elements in the movement to collaborate with the enemy also must be taken into account, as this led directly to the current “peer” racket.

ALL TALKS,NO ACTION! is good slogan,for loud mouths writters and activists on MIA!

Indeed this can be changed!We need and I will repeat this 1000 times ,if needed: ANTI- MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT! Why you have *problem* with it,people here?It’s the very name,or what?Until we don’t start with it,we can’t even talk about it’s mission or policy!MIA should be proper *place* to start with it,or not?

As a disabled former “mental patient” currently struggling with Iatrogenic Neurolepsis, I do hereby name:
*BORUT* *RUDL* to be the Global BOSS of the WORLD ANTI-PSYCHIATRY MOVEMENT CLUB.
What do I do *FIRST*, Boss? You tell me, you’re the boss!
I think you’ll do a GREAT job, BORUT RUDL!
And I’m serious. please tell me what to do, to destroy the pseudoscience drug racket and means of social control known as “psychiatry”, and “mental health”.

I correct myself and perhaps worded my post badly in what should have been a new thread in respect to Twilah act of activism.
Bonnie Brustow, Tina Minkowitz and Chuck Ruby of ISEPP all recent put forth opportunities for people to participate in changing this broken system.
The conversation remains important: what kind of change is needed, what is currently happening, where are people meeting and is there currently an information hub where people can find this out in order to participate? It seems to be here and other than that, pretty dispersed. Is MIA willing.able to be that space or should another space be created?
Thank you

judi
You tell the truth.You don’t need need to be sorry for.Activists here are keyboard *warriors* and mere posts,not any serious movement,are all what represent them,as such.Why they didn’t protest before NIMH or WHO so far?All the time same on MIA blogs-Psychiatry and BIG PHARMA,human rights violations…Really I belief that they are here,to re-direct attention away from NIMH or WHO.This two organization,we crazies should hate the most.Only
Mental Health crooks here,won’t agree with me!

If you could tell us about the protests you are personally orchestrating sometime, Borut, against whomever or whatever. I’m sure there are those among us who would be more than happy to join you, if at all possible, in that noble effort.

Include me in. While it will be 3 or 4 years before I recover enough to join physically I’ll be happy to do anything I can to provide moral support, internet PR of the demonstrations and other forms of help behind the scenes.

Protests will happened only,if critical *mass* is reached.This means a Occupy Movement,like was one,which sadly failed in some matter.But Occupy NIMH shall be crazy people own *bidding*.It means normals aren’t welcomed!They making decisons about us in all matters and even about or life and death!We crazies all knows what this means!You have a good point Frank-Institutional Psychiatry=Slavery,better Mental enslavement allowed in USA Mental Institutions,altough USA constitution strictly forbid slavery.And same measure of *democracy* also Europe already learned.Means one *mistake* I did and farewell my citizen *rights* in my country.Slavery in Mental Health System is still legal around the world and crazies becomed by State/ or their country owned Mental Slaves and not human beings.And race isn’t matter for Mental enslavement.DSM matters.And clinical insanity.Psychologists and Psychiatrists your classifications aren’t just pseudo-science and
against biology and evolution,but they even *give* a *legal* *right* to states,or countries to own people as
Mental Slaves!We live in times,when normals aren’t doing anything good for this world anymore,so we can be
masters of our own fate!Which was always in our hands,but many of you didn’t realized this and some sadly
can’t anymore!

We shall see if any MIA writter with M.D. or Ph.D. will have *guts* to comment,my angry *message* here.
I belief,that vanity of their professions exposed above in my comment,will be main reason for the *silence*.